November 2014 - The one where we figure it all out... Or at least try.

[Arkkorox]

Couldn't see another thread ladies! Crap title I know but I couldn't think of anything else!

Thisis how on earth did you manage to put the nappy in the wash!

Hi ladies sorry to hear so many are still having rough nights.

We've been away with dh's family for bhw which was lovely for ds as he spent the whole weekend playing with his favourite cousin. DD had a sickness bug a couple of days before we went away, & still has a hacking cough so was a bit off it but despite that has been a little star & has just fitted in with whatever we've been doing.

Our nights are still pretty crappy. She tends to sleep ok til 11ish then wakes up every 20-30mins for the rest of the night. Sometimes if we're lucky she will settle for a couple of hours after a feed but not always. I'm still undecided whether its the dummy she's waking for (she resettles as soon as I pop it in) or if its her eczema waking her as its pretty bad at the moment. We are doing a dairy free trial to see if it improves & trying to keep her cool at night but its really warm in our (loft) room & she's in minimal clothing & still really itchy. It was much cooler in our holiday home & she def slept better there. I think she may be better in her own room as its much cooler but cant bring myself to traipse up & down the stairs to her at night while she's waking so much!

DD had her first taste of banana today & I'd completely forgotten how badly it stains everything!!! Bib shopping tomorrow!!

For those of you doing BLW are yours already 6 months? I'd like to give it a go with dd but she's not sitting unaided yet & is only just starting to make a grab for things so not sure she'd actually be able to do it yet. Ha who'd know I'd done this once already! Forgotten everything!

DD has been switching her mobile on and off since 5.30am this morning. Argh, FFS! She has worked out she can do it with her foot. So we are moving her cotbed into our room tonight, then the mobile will be high enough for her not to reach it. For few weeks it is. I have always been very excited about any new skills DD has learned, but I am not sure about this one. Could have done with another hour of sleep.

Ds is 23+2 but 25+2 corrected so only a few days short of the 24 weeks that ifI'd said due to him being late.
They don't need to be able to sit unaided, just sit up with either a highchair or on your knee. They also need to be able to aim things accurately to the mouth and also have lost their tongue thrust reflex.
Have a look on the weaning topic under the feed the world area on here.

DS is using his highchair a lot to sit at the table with us and to sit in the kitchen while I do the washing up but his tongue thrust is still very much there. I can't wait to get weaning. BUT he has no interest in food and can't really get stuff to his mouth. I will just have to be patient.

Well i tried her on some porridge today & she wasnt interested at all. Think thats more or less made my mind up to wait a bit longer. DD is 24 weeks today but 21 adjusted.

I cut dd's hair today. She was sporting a rather long comb over, so it was time. . Looks a real little blondie now all the brown tips have gone!

omg dd has just had the most mahoosive jumperoonami ever!!! Seriously there is nowhere for the poo to go in that thing but up!!! It was everywhere!!!

So I was super lucky to get a lush massage and just rang to book the appointment. Told the lady I was breastfeeding and could she just make sure the person doing the massage knew as I though I am not supposed to have some essential oils. She told me not to worry as essential oils are fine while breastfeeding. A quick Google shows there are a few that seem to be "not recommended". Does anybody know anything more about this? The Internet is full of brilliant and useless information!

omama we had one of those in the door bouncer last week. It ended up in his hair!

kellymom.com/bf/can-i-breastfeed/herbs/herbs-oversupply/

I'm guessing avoid these!
Also peppermint if it's not mentioned in the other piece.

Yikes, I didn't know this was an issue, had an aromatherapy massage last week!!

Period started again yesterday :( boo.

Thanks mrsA I am just going to email them the links to that and see what comes from it. From some other reading most of it seems very limited effects as long as it isn't ingested so don't worry ladydolly

I am so full of cold I just cried at DP when he walked through the door. He patted me on the head and said "chippy tea?" He knows me well. Chips, bath and early bed will sort it.

Jumperoonami.....oh God its only a matter of time before we have one of those.

Though now that he's on two meals a day we've had a couple of what I can only call turds. That was a suprise!

DS has started "making strange" with people he doesn't know very well. He met my Mums best friend today (who he's met a couple of times in the past) and his little face just crumpled and he wailed! Tears and everything!

Only a few weeks ago at Dads funeral I was able to shove him at completely random relatives and he was utterly delightful but thats definately gone now. Anyone else gotten to that stage yet?

I was also wondering: how are you all finding breastfeeding these days? I had to stop early cos of bad dairy issues but with the next one I'd like ideally to go longer so I'm wondering how it is now for you all. How often do they do it and for how long? And how are you managing out and about? Are you still having to wear a bra at night and breast pads etc?

Oh and my sympathies ladydolly - I'm on my 2nd period and its so heavy! I'm using a period tracker app named Clue and I really like it. Anyway, according to that my cycle is currently 54 days!

Hope it lessens as we're going to TTC in Autumn. Helpful to track it anyway.

cat I would do more research. I personally wouldn't be worried unless you are having regular massages with lots of oils. I think if you email them that they may get confused as it essentially is the opposite of what you're trying to convey.
At the bottom of kellymom.com there's a search button. If you type essential oil there it doesn't come up with anything precisely matching which in itself would give me some piece of mind or could it be lost in translation???!!!

Breastfeeding here is similar to at 3-4 months. I rarely if never wait for him to ask, just offer roughly every 2 hours or when I want him to sleep or when I remember. Each feed is quicker than before at about 5 mins if it's not heading to a sleep. I never really needed breast pads / bras etc.

Anna I'm still exclusively breastfeeding, DD feeds every 3-4 hours now, though that's relatively recent and also recently she has only been feeding straight after waking from a nap (apart from just before bed) which is nice and predictable. She takes about 10 mins each feed, and just takes from one side. From 4-5months however she was feeding much more often and taking up to half an hour from two sides at each feed! That got my supply up quite a lot and I am having to use breast pads again; I had ditched them after 3m (except at night as DD slept through and I was leaking everywhere). It's starting to settle down now though. She's a dream to latch on now, just need to put her in the general vicinity of my boob and she finds the nipple. But annoyingly she gets very distracted easily (ie if I talk, or look at my phone, or look up, or do anything!) and then whips her head round showing my nipple to all and sundry!

Very similar to moggle babydolly goes on every 3-4 hours unless I'm getting her to sleep or I'm feeding her for comfort or she's having a growth spurt/freakishly hungry day. During sleep regression I was ALWAYS feeding her!! I love bf and it's been the easiest part of motherhood I've found. I still wear breast pads most of the time because if she's due a feed and I think to myself 'she's due a feed' my boons immediately let down before I can find a place get her on! She's still not great at feeding in public, even in a quiet feeding room. The only way I can keep her on is by singing old macdonald really close to her face the whole time. She normally does 2 long feeds at night and sometimes a couple of little ones because I'm too tired to find another way to get her back to sleep.

Now she can roll onto her front confidently (as soon as I put her down) she's desperately trying to crawl and can get herself a couple of feet by putting her head on the floor and pushing with her legs. I really hope she moves on from that soon before she gives herself a carpet burn!

Ha ha 'boons'! Of course I meant boobs...

Tuesday night sleep was appalling. I probably got 2-3hrs in total mostly whilst sitting up holding her. She just would not be put down. Last night was great in comparison, but it is a sad state of affairs when 'great' means 2-3hr stretches of sleep some of which were in the cot. My problem is that I think how she sleeps like a newborn (such short stretches, unputdownable, snuffling and snorting, crying in her sleep), but there was a reason why she slept so badly when she was a few weeks old and I can't face the return of CMPI at the moment. What on earth would I feed a dairy-free vegetarian baby? I wish there was a way I could kno for definite if that is the problem, because there are so many other possibilities (teeth, growth spurt, horrible phase).

Anyway, on the positive side DH managed to find a venue for the christening party that no one else's googling had found, so I don't have the issue of fitting so many people in the house. DD1 is staying with my parents tomorrow night so I only have 8 people here overnight/ getting ready Saturday morning. Just have to hope DD1 doesn't come down with the vomiting bug that is going round pre-school. Then to see what next week throws at us with FIL's operation.

happy that sounds like a good set of options. Glad it is a bit less stressful, well about the Christening anyway!

DS takes about 15 mins to feed amd takes one side at each feed. Between 2-4 hours between feeds. He is an unpredictable soul. At night he feeds from both sides and it takes about 40 mins before bed. During the night. ...no idea.

Still BF here too and also finding it very convenient. Roughly every 3 hours or when she is fussing before a nap. Latches on really easily and takes about five minutes to feed, usually only has one side. Similar public feeding issue though! She's so nosy that the slightest noise makes her crane her head round to look, which is fine except sometimes she doesn't unlatch and stretches my nipple out to a painful extent! Still wearing pads all the time as getting a whiff of her smell or even just hearing her gurgling away makes me run like a tap.

Still bf here completely on demand sometimes goes 20mins sometimes 3hrs he is 24weeks today and been weaning just over 2 weeks we are on 2 meals and he has few bits on highchair when we eat like broccoli or toast or a rice cake and gets them in mouth.

Anna I echo the proper poop now with much effort squeezing it out every other day I give just fruit late morning rather than porridge and fruit otherwise gets too bunged up.

Last 2 nights he has only woken once but not getting too excited at the moment.teething is a pain lucky for paracetamol and ibuprofen. Asda have own paracetamol suspension on offer for a £1 just on normal shelf. (They do a cherry one behind pharmacy for £1.35 if anyone has a baby who refuses the normal strawberry stuff)

Oh thanks for that east will send dp to get some cherry stuff as I still can't get the normal stuff into her unless it's mixed into a bottle!

Just catching up with everyones news after a trip to the in laws which involved a 7 hr drive each way. ..not very successful as dd has a stinking cold (again). By the time we got there she had tears streaming down her face; snot pouring from her nose; and drool coming out like there was no tomorrow. ..
Sleep is very illusive here - have reverted to co-sleeping as dd now refusing bottle and will only bf (on and off all night) so just easier to have her next to me. Does mean very little sleep for me as every little noise she makes wakes me up. Surely this can't last forever?
Sorry for moan. ..am sat comfort feeding dd (think she's fallen asleep) whilst watching crap tv...

happy I'm actually finding weaning with CMPI a doddle, suprisingly. We are giving fruits, veg and porridge (and occasional rusks/Liga) and if we need milk we just use oat milk which is nice and sweet.

I'm not doing BLW yet as he's too much of a hungry hippo and wants large quantities of food so am spoonfeeding him whilst encouraging him to hold the spoon. He's really getting the hang of it. So we also use Ellas Kitchen pouches cos they have no dairy in them at all.

The only thing we've had to avoid has been things like Baby Porridge which has added dairy. We just use normal porridge, made with loads of water for smoothness, and oatmilk added to taste.

With introduction of wheat I just waited three days to see if there was a tummy reaction. There wasn't, so now we're forging ahead. No probs with soya here either. Dairy alone is a piece of piss to avoid. I'm going to go to Tesco when the time comes to introduce yoghurts etc as they have all that dairy-free stuff.

With regards to veggie babies - I know they eat lots of hummus and couscous and quinoa, tahini, quorn and tofu.

The first night in the cot bed and DD had no problem, same sleep pattern etc., however, I did have a problem. Now that she is in the big bed, for me to feed her means I cannot just stretch my arm with the bottle in it, I actually have to move up a bit. Now that I wrote it down sounds lazy, but during the night I thought it was a tragedy.

Naps wise, DD has been now for a week having an hour long nap in lunch time and shorter naps before and after that. She is napping more than couple of months ago, but also fighting them more than before. I blame the leap!

Our BF has gone to pot slowly but surely. DD has always been extremely alert and at 3 months when she became more aware of surroundings, I could not get her look at a bit of bare flesh for 10 minutes. She was still BF fine during the night, just the days were pain. After trying all the tricks you can find on internet without much of success I started to express and feed her. This worked for about month, then one night she BF at 1am, then woke up at 3am and went bonkers at the fact I was trying to BF her. She has not looked back since then. I was still expressing for few weeks after that and then decided it was time to move on as I had enough of the pump. Gradually had been expressing less frequent and the last week have stopped all together. Still wear pads as there are small leaks happening whenever I pick DD up.